Goldman Sachs is set to invest in Mexico’s newly opened energy sector, Reuters reported Tuesday.
The company’s private equity arm has teamed up with Ainda, a Mexican consulting firm, to invest in energy and infrastructure, signing a deal to “identify, pursue, evaluate and make investments jointly,” according to a filing seen by Reuters.
Ainda would invest up to US$1.15 billion in projects with Goldman’s Merchant Banking Division, with the latter putting up at least 50 percent of the total equity amount in joint projects, a source told Reuters.
The Mexican government approved a comprehensive, neoliberal reform of its energy policies in August, 2014.
The energy reform allows private companies to participate in the oil and gas industries for the first time since 1938, when President Alvaro Obregon nationalized the oil industry.
The decline in the price of oil has also negatively affected the income of the state-oil company, Pemex, reducing its capability of investing in production, leading government to pursue private investment even more vigorously.
As such, in September Mexico’s finance ministry unveiled a new vehicle in September similar to a real estate investment trust called a Fibra E.
Reuters reported in November that Ainda plans to raise US$1.15 billion through a public offering of certificates for an infrastructure energy investment vehicle, and that vehicle can subsequently be converted into a Fibra E.
The filing specifying the joint investment between Goldman and Ainda is expected to be submitted to the Mexican stock exchange shortly.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Goldman Sachs, Latin America, Mexico |
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Prime Minister David Cameron has told representatives of the UK’s Jewish community that he intends to “mark” with them the centenary of the Balfour Declaration next year.
Cameron met members of the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) on January 13, in what has become an annual meeting.
According to a Downing Street spokesperson, the PM “recognised how next year is a special year for the Jewish community with the centenary of the Balfour Declaration.”
In remarks quoted in the Jewish News, Cameron said of the anniversary: “I want to make sure we mark it together in most appropriate way.”
A statement issued by the JLC after the meeting said that topics covered also included “glorification of terrorists on campuses and student unions’ adoption of BDS policies”, and “the government’s approach to the Middle East conflict and the need to prepare people for peace rather than conflict.”
The JLC is an umbrella body made up of over 30 Jewish communal organisations.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
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United Nations human rights experts have expressed concern about new counter-terrorism measures adopted in France against the backdrop of the deadly 2015 Paris attacks, calling on the French government to protect fundamental freedoms in its anti-terror battle.
In a statement released on Tuesday, a group of four UN rights specialists said the current state of emergency in France and surveillance laws impose “excessive and disproportionate restrictions” on the basic rights of people.
The statement said the main concerns center on “the lack of clarity and precision of several provisions of the … laws, related to the nature and scope of restrictions to the legitimate exercise of right to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association and the right to privacy.”
On November 13, 2015, assailants struck at least six different venues in and around Paris. The terrorist attacks left 130 people dead and over 350 others wounded. France introduced the state of emergency following the horrendous assaults, which were claimed by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.
The exceptional measures adopted under the state of emergency empower the French police to keep people in their homes without trial, searching houses without judicial approval and blocking suspicious websites. The new measures also include a ban on public demonstrations and allow authorities to dissolve groups inciting any acts that seriously affect public order in France.
The UN rights specialists also called on the French government not to extend the state of emergency beyond February 2016 and ensure protection against any abuse of power while combating terror.
Yasser Louati, a spokesman for the Collective against Islamophobia in France, an anti-racist group, said last month that the state of emergency has unfairly targeted Muslims in France.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Human rights, United Nations |
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On 16 November 2015 the present writer published an article in Australia’s New Matilda magazine. The article had two main objectives. The first was a discussion of the legal bases upon which one State could attack another State. The second purpose was to provide an outline of my attempts to obtain a copy of the legal advice that the Australian government said it would seek before announcing a decision on whether or not to join the United States bombing campaign in Syria.
The content of that advice was of considerable interest. The majority of international lawyers doubted that Australia had any legal basis to intervene militarily in Syria. If the government’s legal advisers had a different opinion, then that would represent a minority view and lawyers would have an interest in the basis of their legal reasoning.
The Australian government had announced on 24 August 2015 that it would be seeking that legal advice. The clear inference was that no decision would be made pending receipt of that advice.
The request under the Freedom of Information Act was refused, but the schedule of relevant documents that were provided (but I was not allowed to see the actual documents) showed that the legal advice had been given to the government on 24 September 2014, eleven months before the Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced that the advice would be sought.
The decision that Australia was going to join the American bombing campaign was announced in early September 2015 and the first bombing was carried out over the weekend of 12 and 13 September 2015. No legal basis was advanced on which this decision had been made. There was no debate in Parliament, but even if there had been it is unlikely that the Labor Opposition would have opposed it given their supine position on all matters relating to “national security”.
The only opposition in Parliament came from Senator Richard di Natale, the Green Party leader, and Senator Scott Ludlum, also of the Greens.
On 16 November 2015, the day the New Matilda article was published, Ms Bishop appeared on ABC National Radio to announce that the decision to join the US bombing was made in response to a request from the Iraqi government pursuant to the collective self-defence provisions of Article 51 of the UN Charter. That it took two months to even proffer a reason was interesting in itself.
What Ms Bishop claimed was the reason for the military intervention, that it was at the request of the Iraqi government, contradicted what the government had itself said in August 2015. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald the government of then Prime Minister Tony Abbott had “pushed for Washington to request that Australia expand its air strikes against Islamic State from Iraq into Syria.”
In acknowledging in August 2015 that the “invitation” was solicited, there was no mention then of any legal considerations that the government would have to consider. The further issue of how it was legally possible, under international law, for the United States to have any basis of inviting any country to join its bombing campaign in Syria, was never mentioned.
It exemplifies the arrogance characteristic of western foreign policy that simply assumes the right to bomb countries, and invite others to do so.
Ms Bishop in her radio interview of 16 November 2015 never referred to any American request, or that her former leader had solicited such a request. She preferred instead to claim that the invitation had come from the Iraqi government. For the reasons given below, that claim was in all probability untrue.
Ms Bishop’s explanation in that radio interview might have answered the query about the claimed legal basis upon which Australia was going to bomb another sovereign nation put to her by the interviewer. But there were further problems for Ms Bishop and the Australian government.
On 20 November 2015 the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2249. Despite some ill-informed media comment in the mainstream press about this resolution, it was manifestly not an authorization to attack Syria.
The operative part of the Resolution required all Member States to “take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular the UN Charter… on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Daesh, in Syria and Iraq.”
The Australian government’s first problem then, is that it purports to rely on international law, and in particular Article 51 of the UN Charter. UN Security Council Resolution 2249 did not authorise action outside the terms of the UN Charter. That means that any action would have to be either in self-defence or by resolution of the Security Council. Neither condition exists. That leaves only the notion of collective self-defence.
This is the lingering fig leaf of legal respectability that the government clung to, as set out by Ms Bishop in her interview of 16 November 2015. She claimed that Australia was acting at the purported request of the Iraqi government.
Confirmation of the Australian government’s reliance upon the alleged request by the Iraqi government is found in the letter sent by the Australian government to the Security Council on 9 September 2015. Such a letter of notification of military action against another sovereign State is required under the terms of the UN Charter.
The letter stated that the Syrian government was “unable or unwilling” to prevent attacks from its territory upon Iraq. This is a highly contentious claim, and one that has no foundation in international law. Only two States, The United States and the United Kingdom have officially endorsed the “unwilling or unable” doctrine and their self-interest in doing so is readily apparent.
Among the many reasons for its rejection as a doctrine in international law is that it would open the floodgates to the extraterritorial use of force against non-state actors. That it should appear in an official letter from the Australian government to the UN Security Council is surprising. In effect the doctrine is a back door route to avoiding the restrictions imposed by Article 51 of the UN Charter that force must be utilized only in legitimate self-defence or with the consent of the Security Council.
The letter went on to say “in response to the request for assistance by the government of Iraq, Australia is therefore undertaking necessary and proportionate military operations against ISIL in Syria in the exercise of the collective self-defence of Iraq.”
The further problem for the Australian government however, was that the Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq issued an official statement on 3 December 2015. That statement renewed the Iraqi government’s “emphasis on the lack of need for foreign troops in Iraq and that the Iraqi government is committed to not allowing the presence of any ground forces on the land of Iraq, and did not ask any side, whether regional or from an international coalition to send ground troops to Iraq.”
The Prime Minister of Iraq’s statement went on to repeat the Iraqi government’s position that it had asked for air support for Iraqi forces operating within Iraq. It further demanded that no activity be undertaken without the approval of the Iraqi government. It would appear that the Iraqi government has a firmer grasp of the limitations on military actions imposed by international law than does the Australian government.
That Iraqi government statement is a direct rebuttal of the claims made by Ms Bishop on behalf of the Australian government that the bombing of Syria was at the request of the Iraqi government. Thus, the Iraqi government demolished the remaining tiny element of potential legality for Australia’s actions.
This is not the end of the Australian government’s legal problems. The International Court of Justice has on at least two occasions in recent years pronounced that the concept of “collective self-defence” does not apply when the “defence” is against non-State actors.
ISIS is not a State in any meaningful sense of the word, so if Iraq had asked for such help against ISIS in Syria, (which as we have seen it did not) such a request would have had no legal basis.
The Australian mainstream media had given a small amount of space to Ms Bishop’s original announcement about Australia intending to bomb Syria. There was also some coverage of the fact that Australian warplanes had carried out operations in Syria when those operations commenced in September 2015.
Almost no coverage was given to the doubts about the legality of the air operations after they had commenced. There was no coverage given to the government’s letter to the Security Council and therefore on the contentious claims made in that letter. Neither was any coverage given to the statement from the Office of the Prime Minister of Iraq. To do so would of course have fatally undermined the editorial support for the government’s actions.
But there was a further significant development that should have been disclosed by the government and given extensive coverage by the media, and that is the extent of the actual bombing in Syria undertaken by the Australian Air Force.
The Department of Defence issues, via its website, the activities of the Air Task Group as it is known, in Iraq and Syria. These data reveal that the F/A-18 fighter-bomber used by the Australian Air Force flew 18 sorties in Syria in September 2015 for a total of 143 operational hours. This was the month the operations commenced.
It was also however, the month that the operations initially ended. The Department of Defence figures show that zero sorties were flown in Syria in the months of October and November and 10 in December.
Some obvious questions are posed by these data. The first question is why did the bombing cease after the same month it began? The second question is why, given the controversies that surrounds the bombing, were the government and the media totally silent on the fact that the bombing had ceased in October and November?
An obvious question is why did the Foreign Minister, in her interview on 16 November 2015, not mention the fact that the bombing she claimed was legally justified had in fact ceased more than six weeks previously? The impression that she strongly sought to convey was that the bombing was both legal and continuing pursuant to the various claims that she was making.
The answers to those questions are necessarily speculative, as the government does not see fit to announce to the people to whom it is accountable, what they are doing on such a vital issue. The mainstream media are doing what they always do, which is to avoid printing any material that does not accord with their pre-determined agenda.
We do know however, that the American bombing of Syria had been singularly ineffective in diminishing ISIL’s operational capacity. Some commentators have suggested that was precisely the point. Whether Australia wished to continue being a party to that charade is an interesting point, and one that an Opposition and a media interested in the truth should pursue.
There was another development at the end of September 2015 however, that has been a singular game-changer in the Syrian theatre of operations. The Russian military intervened in the Syrian conflict. Completely unlike the position of the US “coalition”, the Russians intervened at the specific request of the Syrian government. There was therefore no doubt in international law that the Russian intervention was legally permissible.
The Russian intervention, while on a relatively small scale, has been devastatingly effective. Not only were the ISIL forces obliged to seek cover from air attacks, having enjoyed apparent immunity from the Americans and their allies during the preceding 15 months, there was also major disruption of their supply lines.
As a result of Russian air reconnaissance and satellite images, it has been established beyond doubt that ISIL was transporting stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil across the Turkish border. That oil was sold on the black market through a company with close links to President Erdogan of Turkey. Military supplies were in turn being shipped back across the Turkish border into Iraq and Syria.
There is also good evidence that wounded ISIL fighters are being treated in Turkish and Israeli hospitals. They are also trained in Turkish and Jordanian camps among other places. Both President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have pointed out the financial and other support ISIL receives from other countries in the region.
The Australian media have chosen to give only minimal coverage to some of these disclosures and certainly no analysis of their implications. Those interested in discovering what is actually happening in Syria and related theatres of war are obliged to seek that information elsewhere.
The Russians have also installed the sophisticated S400 air defence system in Syria. This gives them, and their Syrian allies, the capacity to shoot down any unauthorized aircraft in Syrian air space. Again it is purely speculative, but that may also be a reason why Australian Air Force bombing of Syria, which is manifestly unauthorized, ceased for two months after the Russian intervention.
There has now been another new development. The former Defence Minister, Kevin Andrews, sacked when Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister in September, complained that Australia should not have rejected a request from the Americans for a greater commitment of troops to Syria. It appears that the replacement Defence Minister, Marise Payne, had rejected such a request.
Typically, neither the fact of the request nor that it had been refused were known to the public until Mr Andrews complained. Equally typically, the issue of the legal right of the US to make such a request was never discussed.
The fact that it was the Americans who were driving the push for a greater military commitment by Australia did not form part of the letter to the Security Council, and neither was it mentioned by Ms Bishop on 16 November 2015 when she told the ABC why Australia was going to join the bombing of Syria.
To stop the illegal bombing was undoubtedly correct from many points of view, not least from the standpoint of international law that Australia has increasingly disregarded in recent years. The great pity is that the Australian government had neither the moral fortitude nor sufficient faith in the Australian people to inform them of the decision to even temporarily withdraw from a war they had no business in pursuing in the first place.
Neither have we been given an explanation as to why this manifestly illegal bombing has recommenced, whether it is intended to continue, and if so on what possible legal basis. The original purported justifications have been comprehensively demolished by the subsequent revelations. Whether Mr Turnbull can resist the inevitable pressure from the Americans at his forthcoming meeting with President Obama will be closely watched.
James O’Neill is an Australian-based Barrister at Law.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Australia, Da’esh, Iraq, Syria, United States |
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As the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified over the weekend that Iran has completed the measures necessary to comply with the nuclear deal reached last July with the P5+1 governments, the New York Times Editorial Board proclaimed “the world is now safer for this.” They lauded the deal as a “testament to patient diplomacy” and President Barack Obama’s “visionary determination to pursue a negotiated solution to the nuclear threat.”
The Editorial Board takes for granted that Iran presents a threat. Iran has always maintained it has never intended to build nuclear weapons, and that it’s nuclear program was strictly meant to use nuclear technology as a source of energy production. In fact, in 1957 the United States government itself provided Iran with its first nuclear reactor while the country was ruled by U.S. ally – and murderous dictator – Shah Reza Pahlavi. Iran would later sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1968 and ratify it two years later.
Several years ago Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared that “(w)e believe that nuclear weapons (in the world) must be obliterated, and we do not intend to make nuclear weapons.” Previously he had said making nuclear weapons was a “sin.”
But regardless of their professed intentions, the New York Times is skeptical the Iranian government can be trusted. They claim that there still exist “daunting challenges ahead” as the other parties to the agreement need to ensure “the deal is strictly adhered to.” The New York Times’s skepticism is unsurprising. While the Times certainly will not repeat George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” language, they internalize the same ideological framework.
Is the Times’s skepticism warranted by the Iranian government’s record? That would be hard to argue, as the revolutionary regime in power since 1979 has never invaded another country. Unstated and assumed to be self-evident is the idea that Iran is dangerous and unable to be trusted because it is not aligned with Washington. Rather, it exercises its own independent foreign policy outside of American control.
If there were not a double standard in play, the Times would treat the United States government with the same skepticism as Iran. After all, the United States, which possesses at least 7,200 nuclear warheads, is the only country in history to have used nuclear weapons – twice, against a country seeking for months to negotiate a conditional surrender.
Unlike Iran, the United States is not complying with the NPT. As a state already in possession of nuclear weapons, the United States has a responsibility under its treaty obligations to pursue disarmament. The Times itself detailed the U.S. government’s own modernization of its nuclear weapons in a front-page article on January 11.
The article by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger notes that Obama promised to work towards nuclear disarmament early in his presidency, saying he would “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”
However, the $1 trillion plan that later emerged called for the modernization of current nuclear weapons by redesigning and improving them. The Times quotes a critical report developed by two former national security officials as saying Obama’s plan could be seen “as violating the administration’s pledge not to develop or deploy” new nuclear weapons. Neither the report nor the Times questions whether this is also a violation of the government’s obligations under the NPT.
The Times shows a graphic depiction of the enhancements, including a steerable fins, a navigation system and safety features. “The result is a bomb that can make more accurate nuclear strikes and a warhead whose destructive power can be adjusted to minimize collateral damage and radioactive fallout,” the caption reads. This may make them “more tempting to use,” according to critics.
The title of the article, “As U.S. Modernizes Nuclear Weapons, ‘Smaller’ Leaves Some Uneasy,” is evidence that the debate around the Obama administration’s plan is seen as a matter of strategy and cost efficiency, rather than as a violation of international law and a threat to peace. The people left “uneasy” are all close to the national security establishment. Their concerns don’t have to do with the program’s contravention of the U.S. government’s responsibilities under the NPT. The debate is merely one of philosophical differences between policy makers.
Despite Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement (their continued compliance with the NPT is not even mentioned), the Times Editorial Board states that this doesn’t mean they “should not be subject to criticism or new sanctions for violation of other United Nations resolutions or American laws.” Indeed, they had previously called the Obama administration’s plans to impose new sanctions for Iran’s ballistic missile tests “wise.”
Aside from the dubious position that the U.S. government should unilaterally impose sanctions related to UN resolutions, they claim that Iran should be subject to the extraterritorial application of American laws. Under international law, no state is bound to respect the domestic laws of another state. The U.S. Supreme Court declared “the laws of no nation can justly extend beyond its own territories except so far as regards its own citizens. They can have no force to control the sovereignty or rights of any other nation within its own jurisdiction.”
The Times does not call for any legal or economic repercussions against the United States. The U.S. government’s $1 trillion program to upgrade its nuclear weapons is not in any way presented as a grave threat that affects the rest of the world. They don’t demand controls by outside powers the U.S. must strictly adhere to, as they do for Iran. Their framing of the story and absence of any editorial condemnation makes it clear the paper views the actions of the U.S. government as unquestionably beyond reproach.
The paper’s calls for the strict enforcement of the nuclear deal and application of new sanctions on the Iranian government are not grounded in any moral or legal principles. They are a reflection of the Times‘s acceptance of the U.S. government’s patronizing doctrine that threats to peace only emanate from countries outside of American control, who must be dealt with using coercion and punishment that the U.S. itself is always exempt from.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Iran, New York Times, United States |
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Good evening. I have purchased this television time tonight on every available media outlet here in Iowa, just days in advance of the 2016 caucuses. I address you, because the choice you make in a few days time could well determine whether we live in peace or go to war, possibly nuclear war. The very survival of humanity could hang in the balance. And it hinges on whether you vote for me or for my principal opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Let us be blunt, she has never seen a war she did not like. And looking at the wars of the last 25 years, she has been an ardent supporter in every case and a principal architect of most of them.
This campaign in Iowa has a bit of déjà vu to it. In 2008, Iowans gave a victory to Barack Obama in the caucuses, the first step in derailing the Clinton presidential candidacy back then. You did so because Obama presented himself as the peace candidate whereas Hillary Clinton was already known as an implacable hawk. You voted for peace. Unfortunately, Obama let you down and pursued a more warlike course, in no small part due to pressure from then Secretary of State Clinton and her allies in and out of government. I do not intend to let you down. I want to make that crystal clear tonight.
My new view of America’s place in the world in the 21st Century, which I wish to enunciate this evening, is a further development of my vote against the Iraq War. In short I now commit myself to a principled anti-interventionist stand. Let us have no more wars. That is within our power. My present view results from an intense discussion with activists in my campaign and more importantly from progressives who refused to join the campaign because of my earlier weak stance on interventionism. I thank them. I owe far more to them than those who simply went along to get along. I hope that those who refused to sign on to the campaign will do so now. I welcome them in advance and congratulate them on their integrity.
Perhaps the shortcomings of my earlier views had to do with my devotion to Israel. But we must face facts: Israel is an apartheid state, as former President Jimmy Carter so forcefully and eloquently demonstrated in his book, “Palestine. Peace Not Apartheid.” We can no more claim to be just in supporting Israel than we could when we supported apartheid South Africa. I now repudiate my earlier defense of Israel’s barbaric bombing of defenseless Gazans. I was wrong to defend that criminal action. And I commit myself to ending apartheid in historic Palestine in a decisive way.
Perhaps I have also been too committed to the idea of a campaign that is polite. But that too has been wrong. By any reasonable standard Mrs. Clinton is a war criminal and mass murderer. And no war criminal deserves to be treated with kid gloves. To do so is to disrespect the thousands of American lives unnecessarily lost because of her policies. And it is to disrespect the millions of Muslims and others in the Middle East and North Africa who have lost lives, families, loved ones, home and hearth. She criticizes Donald Trump for his statements about some Muslims. But her charge rings hollow when there is so much Muslim blood on her hands. Killing is worse than slandering by far.
But let me be more specific. The Clinton administration of the 1990’s enjoyed the benefit of the end of the Cold War. It could have opened an era of peace. Instead of treating Russia with respect and taking a stance of peace, the Clintons repeated the error of the Treaty of Versailles, lording it over Russia and beginning the expansion of NATO to the East. That expansion has culminated in the coup and crisis in Ukraine engineered by a protégé of both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Cheney, the arch neoconservative Victoria Nuland. And that action has pushed us deep into a new Cold War with Russia, which according to former Secretary of Defense in the Clintons’ administration, William Perry, makes nuclear war a greater threat today than in the first Cold War! That is the precipice to which Mrs. Clinton and other neoconservatives and “humanitarian” warriors have driven us.
Ms. Clinton has not been satisfied with the development of a Cold War in Europe alone. She has also, along with President Obama, set us on a course of conflict with China, with her so-called “pivot to Asia,” using Japan as the cat’s paw for new anti-China confrontations.
The Chinese idea of a win-win interaction among nations, indeed the plea for it by China, has fallen on deaf ears in our media and has been firmly rejected by Ms. Clinton and her cabal in the Obama administration.
With regard to China I must ask: What is she thinking? For over a year now, China now has been the number one economy in the world in Purchasing Power Parity terms according to the IMF. It is now building up its arms at a more rapid pace in response to our threats. The antagonism of our government to China in an attempt to weaken it and bring it down is a futile course and a dangerous one. It needs to be reversed at once, as does our bellicosity to Russia.
I also note in fairness to Barack Obama, that his administration, since the departure of Secretary Clinton, has moved, however gingerly, into more peaceful waters where she did not wish to sail. The opening to Cuba and then to Iran and some signs of a developing détente in the meetings of Secretary Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov are testimony to that. They did not occur while the belligerent Hillary Clinton was at the helm of State.
Let me finally say something about the emails on Benghazi that Ms. Clinton decided to hide in her secret server, illegally I might say. I have tried to be gallant on this issue, not least because some in Congress have used it in a trivial and partisan way. That was wrong of me, because Ms. Clinton like the rest of us should not be above the law. But focusing on the crime of hiding the emails may distract from greater crimes in the actual content of the emails.
Seymour Hersh has laid out the case that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was the site for a gun running operation to jihadists in Syria. This is what the CIA calls a “rat line,” a term we should all be familiar with and consign forever to the past. The late U.S. Ambassador who served under Mrs. Clinton was most likely involved in implementing that “rat line.” Of course that gun running and destabilization of both Libya and Syria on Mrs. Clinton’s watch has resulted not only in hundreds of thousands of dead but has also precipitated the massive immigration crisis engulfing Europe. We need a full investigation of the intervention in Libya, the illegal gun running, including Mrs. Clinton’s role in it. Her illegally hidden emails may well contain crucial information on this matter. We need to see them, all of them, before the Democratic Party makes its choice of a candidate for President.
Thank you for listening to this message. I hope you will vote for me in the caucuses coming up in just a few days. The avoidance of nuclear catastrophe and perhaps the very survival of the human race may well depend upon the rejection of those, like Mrs. Clinton, who would lead us down a road to more wars and conflict.
John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Benghazi, Hillary Clinton, Russia, United States, Zionism |
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Is the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, a RINO — a revolutionary in name only?
So they must be muttering around the barracks of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps today.
For while American hawks are saying we gave away the store to Tehran, consider what ayatollah agreed to.
Last week, he gave his blessing to the return of 10 U.S. sailors who intruded into Iranian waters within hours of capture. He turned loose four Americans convicted of spying. And he gave final approval to a nuclear deal that is a national humiliation.
Ordered by the U.S. and Security Council to prove Iran was not lying when it said it had no nuclear weapons program — an assertion supported by 16 U.S. intelligence agencies “with high confidence” in 2007 — the ayatollah had to submit to the following demands:
Decommission 12,000 Iranian centrifuges, including all the advanced ones at Fordow, ship out of the country 98 percent of its enriched uranium, remove the core of its heavy-water reactor in Arak and fill it with concrete, and allow U.N. inspectors to crawl all over Iran’s nuclear facilities for years to come.
Iran is being treated by the great powers like an ex-con on parole who must be monitored and fitted with an ankle bracelet.
Why did the ayatollah capitulate to these demands?
Comes the reply: To get $100 billion. But the money Iran is getting back belongs to Iran. It is not foreign aid. The funds had been frozen until Iran accepted our conditions. The sanctions worked.
There is another reason Tehran may have submitted.
When Iran said it did not have a nuclear bomb program, it was telling the truth. Indeed, it is Iran’s accusers, many from the same crowd that misled and lied to us when they said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, whose credibility is in question today.
Iran’s accusers should produce their evidence, if any, that Iran had, or still has, a nuclear bomb program.
Otherwise, they should shut up with the lying and goading the U.S. into another war that will leave us with another trillion-dollar debt, ashes in our mouths, and thousands more dead and wounded warriors.
Yet, if Iran does not have a nuclear bomb program, we must ask: Why not? And the answer suggests itself: Because Iran concluded, years ago, that an atom bomb would make it less not more secure.
For, as soon as Iran tested a bomb, a nuclear arms race would be on in the Mideast with Saudis, Turks and Egyptians all in competition.
The Israelis would put their nuclear arsenal on a hair trigger. And most dangerous for Iran, she would find herself confronting the USA.
Yet, no matter how much the mullahs may hate us, they are not stupid, and they know a war with America would leave their country, as it left Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, smashed and broken.
Iraq is today splintered into Sunni, Shiite, Kurd and Arab. And Iran, after a war with the USA, could decompose into a tribalized land of warring Persians, Arabs, Baluch, Kurds and Azeris.
Yet, if a war with America would be a disaster for Iran, detente with America might bring a time of peace that could enable this largest nation on the Persian Gulf, with 80 million people, and an ally now of its old rival Iraq, to achieve hegemony in the Gulf.
Which brings us back to the ayatollah.
From his actions, he appears to have blessed Iran’s taking the same road on which Deng Xiaoping set out some four decades ago.
After Mao’s death, Deng found China with a backward economy in a booming world led by Reagan’s America and a Japan on the march.
To save Communism, Deng decided to embrace state capitalism.
And as there is nothing new under the sun, Deng had a model.
In 1921, in the wake of Russia’s crushing defeat in the Great War and bloodletting in the Civil War between “Reds” and “Whites,” Lenin saw his regime imperiled by a rising revolution against the Bolsheviks.
He dumped “war Communism” for a New Economic Policy, opened Russia to Western investors, while assuring the comrades that the capitalists “will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
Similarly, Iran’s regime seems to have concluded that the path to power and permanence of the regime lies not in conflict with the United States, but in avoiding conflict — and taking the China road.
President Hassan Rouhani, who also sees Iran’s future as best assured by resolving the nuclear issue and reengaging with the West, described his triumph to the Iranian parliament:
“All are happy except Zionists, warmongers, sowers of discord among Islamic nations and extremists in the U.S. The rest are happy.”
If this deal is truly in the interests of the United States and Iran, whose interests would be served by scuttling it? Who seeks to do so?
And why would they want a return to confrontation and perhaps war?
Copyright 2016 Creators.com.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Iran, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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Most people around the globe are relieved by the prospect of peace following the lifting the embargo against Iran. Two groups, however, are not so happy. The Saudis and the Jews. The Saudi unease is based on geopolitical terms: Sunni/Shia conflict, oil market competition, and so on. However, it is puzzling that NY Jewish leaders are pretty upset by the prospect of putting this never ending conflict to sleep.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC), a body that claims to represent American Jews, reacted to the nuclear deal with a statement that it should not mean a return to “business as usual.”
“We call on governments to make it clear – to their countries’ business sector – that the JCPOA does not represent a return to ‘business as usual’ with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. A range of tough US sanctions, which AJC supports, remains in effect; Iran’s non-nuclear activities, which are ongoing and destabilizing, are subject to continued – and likely escalating – sanctions,” read a statement by AJC on Sunday.
The AJC and the ADL are apparently concerned with ‘human rights’ issues. Both pointed to “Iran’s on going human rights abuses and expansionism in the Middle East, in part through proxies like Hezbollah.” One would actually expect these Jewish organisations to deal first with the inhumanity of their Jewish State that’s a leading force in abuse of human rights, brutal racism and expansionism.
AIPAC declared that the lifting of sanctions is a “dangerous moment for America and our allies.” The group called on policymakers to confront “regional proxies” while taking “firm action to support our allies, especially Israel.”
B’nai B’rith, yet another Jewish American institution, said the US decision to slap sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile tests last October and December reinforced their skepticism about Iran’s willingness to go forward in compliance with the JCPOA. Seemingly American Jewish institutions are collectively distressed by the resolution of the conflict with Iran. Peace and reconciliation must be foreign to their lexicon. Perhaps someone should take a second and explain to these intrusive foreign lobbies that for America and the West, Iran is the last hope for stability in the region. Iran is the only regional power that can help to reverse the disaster created by the Jewish State and its lobby. But then it is not surprising to find Jewish lobbies locating themselves at the forefront of the pro war camp. As I have been saying for years, shalom doesn’t mean peace, it means security for the Jews.
American Jewish lobbies such as AJC, AIPAC, ADL and B’nai B’rith appear convinced that America fighting Iran is good for the Jews. However, it seems that, contrary to the wisdom of its Jewish lobbies, the American administration eventually gathered that peace is patriotic.
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | ADL, AIPAC, AJC, B’nai B’rith, Iran, Israel, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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Why are we “over there?”
I had expected that there would be little in last week’s State of the Union address about foreign policy as it is not an Administration strength, but, to my surprise, President Barack Obama gave it about eight minutes, a little over 1000 words. Governor Nikki Haley was, however, more detached from the issue in her rebuttal speech, stating only that “… we are facing the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation has seen since September 11th, and this president appears either unwilling or unable to deal with it.”
Obama made a number of points which illustrate his own inclinations regarding how to deal with the rest of the world. He emphasized that America, the “most powerful nation on earth,” must be the global leader, “… when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead. They call us.”
Regarding the major conflict zones, he observed that “In today’s world, we’re threatened less by evil empires and more by failing states. The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia. Russia is pouring resources in to prop up Ukraine and Syria, client states that they saw slipping away from their orbit.”
Obama added that “Both Al Qaida and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our people… Our foreign policy has to be focused on the threat from ISIL and Al Qaida. We have to take them out. For more than a year, America has led a coalition of more than 60 countries… If this Congress is serious about winning this war and wants to send a message to our troops and the world, authorize the use of military force against ISIL.”
Concerning nation building, Obama opined that “We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis…even if it’s done with the best of intentions. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately will weaken us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam. It’s the lesson of Iraq, and we should have learned it by now.”
And how to lead effectively? “On issues of global concern, we will mobilize the world to work with us, and make sure other countries pull their own weight. That’s our approach to conflicts like Syria, where we’re partnering with local forces and leading international efforts to help that broken society pursue a lasting peace.”
A final State of the Union Address is more than most a political document, intended to establish a loose framework of success that will enable the president’s party to prevail in the next presidential election. This is why Obama, instead of addressing substantive issues in a serious way, gave time to the warm and fuzzy perspectives that will define the Democratic Party in national elections later this year. He touched on gay marriage, education reform, job growth, Obamacare, and on guns legislation, all of which are core issues for those who align with the Democrats. The reality of each of those alleged “successes” can, of course, be challenged as failures or even unconstitutional, but the highly structured and almost ritualistic annual presidential speech does not exactly present much of a debating society opportunity for the opposition party.
I have long thought that President Obama is basically a moderate politically speaking who is extremely cautious and disinclined to take any risks. He was, admittedly, elected president in spite of his having had no experience that qualified him for the office. His electoral success was due to a number of factors coming together, most notably a scary GOP candidate coupled with growing antiwar sentiment that was a reaction to the Bush regime’s muscular nationalism. Understanding that, Obama made some gestures that miscategorized him as a “peace” candidate and eventually earned him a Nobel Prize but he quickly surrendered his independence to the consensus driven advisers who were products of the groupthink that drives foreign policy in Washington. In short, he has received some very bad advice and the State of the Union Address inadvertently identifies just what is wrong with the way the Administration views itself within the context of the international community.
It is particularly odd to note the Obama contention that the United States must be the leader, which he cites several times. To a certain extent the claim is little more than self-satisfied preening, but it also goes along with the oft-stated contention that the U.S. President is “leader of the free world,” an expression that Obama frequently uses. Unfortunately, there is no such mandate and it is likely that if an election were held many so-called allies would be reluctant to concede leadership to Washington. The claim that other nations clamor for American leadership is hokum. Germans, in fact, believe that the United States role in world affairs is essentially negative.
And the assertion that Washington is leading a coalition of 60 countries to fight ISIS is clueless, as the coalition is basically inert and toothless, having only acquired some momentum after the Russians intervened on behalf of Syria. Leading coalition partners, to include Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have all along been playing a double game, supporting ISIS more often than not while many other nominal allies have done little or nothing. And the moderate rebels that White House expects to one day raise the liberty cap over Damascus? They have disappeared.
Indeed, Obama’s view of the conflict zones appears to derive more from a cold war style Manichean mentality than from current realities. Russia is incorrectly seen as having “client states” while the ongoing violence in the Middle East is regarded as a process of going through “transformations” that are “rooted in conflicts that date back millennia.” That is a comment that could have been coined by George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but it is self-serving misreading of reality intended to shift the blame for the anarchy in the region.
Ancient history does not explain the contemporary Middle East. Including the festering Israel and Palestine conflict, which has taken on its current form due to the connivance of Washington as Israel’s patron, all of the unrest in the region is quite plausibly a direct or indirect result of American missteps, starting with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 coupled with the attempts to destabilize and change regime in Syria that started in the same year, followed by the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011.
And Obama in his speech appears to want to up the ante, asking congress for war powers to get more deeply into the Syrian civil war. It contradicts his call for learning from past mistakes in Vietnam and Iraq and makes clear that the White House has not benefitted from hindsight as it intends to again repeat using military intervention as a foreign policy tool. It is also telling that Obama did not mention learning anything from the disastrous intervention in Libya, which, of course, occurred on his watch and that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The fact is that the Arab world was relatively stable even if it was not very free before the U.S. sought fit to intervene in serial fashion after 9/11 and it would be nice if the president would just give that a nod, particularly as he went on to say that the United States should not seek to “take over and rebuild” every country that falls into “crisis.” As Obama has not hesitated to continue to do exactly that in Afghanistan with intentions to do likewise in Syria one has to question his perception of where the problem lies.
And finally, there is the question of what to do about terrorism. Describing ISIS and al Qaeda as major threats and the “focus” of U.S. foreign policy gives the groups way too much credit and also enhances their appeal to young Muslim men who will no doubt be volunteering in droves as a response to the Obama message. The reality is that they are not a major threat and never have been and if U.S. foreign policy is focused on them it is a bad misreading of what is important and what is not. Maintaining good working relations with adversaries Russia and China is far more important, as is increasing multilateral cooperation with friendly Asian rim nations and allies in Europe. Diplomacy is not just engaged in repressing bad guys, it is more so about building positive relations with friends and potential allies as well as bridges to opponents.
Foreign policy does not win or lose national elections but the diminished status of diplomacy over the past twenty years coupled with a basic incomprehension of what to do about the development of a multipolar world should be troubling for many Americans because the United States no longer operates in a vacuum. The perpetuation of myths that the U.S. must lead and should take steps to correct the policies of other nations, to include engineering regime change, must be once and for all explicitly discarded. Obama could have called for something like that but he didn’t.
The United States of America does just fine when it minds its own business and seeks friendship with everyone, as President George Washington recommended in his Farewell Address. Even the so-called terrorist problem would be much diminished because, as Ron Paul has correctly observed, “they are over here because we are over there.” Unfortunately, an undoubtedly intelligent and seemingly well-intentioned man like Barack Obama has chosen to go with the Washington consensus rather than heed his own instincts, which is something of a tragedy as whoever succeeds him in office is not likely to possess either of those virtues and will no doubt double down on “America the exceptional.”
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Libya, Middle East, Obama, Syria, United States |
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The only way to solve a refugee problem is to stop generating refugees. Since arriving in Germany 3 ½ months ago, I’ve made this point over and over. Most Germans, though, are only focused on the issue of accepting or rejecting refugees, not on the root cause of it, which is America and Israel’s deliberate destabilization of much of the Middle East and parts of North Africa. Wrecking one Muslim country after another, this evil alliance is also sowing chaos in Europe. To save themselves, Europeans must decouple from these two rogue states.
Germany, though, merely does what it’s told by Uncle Sam, and the German left is too busy attacking “fascists”—that is, everyone they disagree with—to even notice that it is the United States that’s thrown their country into turmoil, but then again, being internationalist, most of these leftists don’t even recognize the concept of nationhood. They’re aiming for an uprising of a mythical international brotherhood.
There are thousands of tribes and hundreds of nations, with even people speaking the same language and sharing the same cultural heritage often disagreeing very violently with each other. Nations exist so nominally like-minded people can set up their society the way they see fit. Even an Austrian does not want to live a German, much less an Afghan. When people defend borders, then, they’re fighting for their way of life, and though men everywhere have done this throughout history, progressives think this imperative can somehow be outgrown by everyone on this earth, all but the evil 1%.
“No man is illegal,” chant progressives, and of course this is true, as well as meaningless. A man’s crossing into another nation’s territory without permission is equivalent to breaking into someone’s home. Desperate enough, millions are doing just that, but even those who aren’t will barge in if the doors are flung wide open, with welcome signs and streamers. A radical progressive might say, “I don’t believe in private property either,” but try to reach for his wallet and see if he’s not a hypocrite.
I just got back from three days in Poland, and though $3 plates of pierogi and $1 pints of beer appeal to me mightily, does that mean I can just move there tomorrow? Invaded by Germany and Russia not that long ago, Poles know the pains of having one’s borders violated. Most people around the world do.
Though you’ve no doubt read many commentaries on the sexual crimes on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, I offer you further insights from a German friend in Frankfurt:
“The incidents have had a considerable impact on the German psyche. What happened in Cologne (and several other cities like Hamburg or Bielefeld) on New Year’s Eve had a new character to them.
For the first time, rather huge groups of foreigners were sexually harassing young women and girls. Cologne alone has over 650 incidents—that is much more than usual. Also, the nature of these acts was new, in that women were treated as meat or toys. Not that this could not happen with German men, but—at least to my humble knowledge—this behavior has never been shown by large groups of German men. You could say that there is a normal cultural barrier and Germans would not step over it.
If, on the other hand, you see women as toys or infidel women as sluts, the behavior makes sense.
Yes, it is a big issue, but I suppose it will fade from focus soon. It will stay in the collective mind, however. As I write this, questions like ‘how to buy a gun illegally’ are flourishing on the German net as do the sale of pepper sprays and self-defense courses.
So the reaction of the German public is mostly disgust and anger, though the media and a large minority try to show these incidents as aberrations which should not be attached to the refugees. This, in turn, makes other Germans angry.
A funny side note: The official media and people who usually complain about women’s rights here have a rather hard time avoiding racism by denouncing these crimes. Therefore, really absurd explanations have been floated, as in Cologne was nothing special or that some of the harassed women must have been racists who used these incidents to make false accusations against immigrants.
The head of the police in Cologne had to resign, but the Minister of the Interior for the Federal Region Nordrhein-Westfalen stays—and he is the one who is really responsible.
So the political reactions are twofold—verbally, everybody condemns these acts, while practically nothing is done to stop the influx of refugees coming here.
It has to be added that, as usually in such cases, the Cologne incidents have been used as an excuse by state officials to call for stricter laws and for more surveillance (as if we didn’t have both already).
The official line could be still summed up as something like this: Immigration is good and necessary and criticism on migrants or refugees is a sign of hate and of being a Nazi. This is still the official mantra in the media. The media didn’t report on Cologne for three days, but then they had to bring it up because it was causing such a storm in the alternative media. Nothing much will change—though I am sure, the state will increase its control mechanisms on the population.
A rather intelligent conspiracy theory muses about the possibility that these acts were ‘staged’ (which I do not share as an explanation) and that they will be used together with similar incidents to one day declare a state of emergency and deprive us of our civil rights, so that in the face of financial armageddon (the big financial crisis looming in the background), the state may rob us of all our savings and our rights with as little resistance as possible (because we need to be protected from nasty migrants and terrorists).
Though I find this theory rather interesting, I don’t think these acts were staged. We do live in an age of ‘scripted reality,’ however, so I believe that—just like in France, where they had introduced a state of emergency after the Paris terrorist attacks, and it is still in place—our government already has the plans on what to do to achieve the goal of creating a police state in Germany, where we can be constantly surveilled 24/7 and have our rights taken away without us fighting against it.
Also, the alternative and official media have been awash since the start of the refugee crisis with reports about refugees who misbehaved in the public (squatting or urinating in gardens of Germans, sexually assaulting women in public swimming pools, starting fights in discotheques, rapes, etc.).
These incidents are somewhat expected because the majority of these refugees are young men without wives or women, and they come from backgrounds where the position of women in society is rather different than in ours.
So some of these young men will misbehave, and since they are not punished—for to send them back to their countries would be racist and, in some cases the country is not known, because quite a few refugees threw away their passports before entering Germany—they are encouraged to continue what they do.
I have personal knowledge from a policeman in Gießen (a town in the middle of Hesse), where there is a huge camp for refugees. He told me of frequent rapes in this camp among the refugees, even of children, but they are not prosecuted by the police (on order from above), because it might create fear in the local population. There were reports about these incidents from a German Women’s Protection Group (Landesfrauenrat Hessen) in August last year—they even wrote an official letter to the Hessian parliament to complain about prostitution and organized rapes in the camp—and guess what happened?
The letter (and the issue) just disappeared—because it might have fuelled anti-refugee sentiments and helped Nazis! THIS is the official German policy—it is ideologically driven and full of cowardice. While on a visit in Gießen, I spoke to some female students living in a student hostel near the camp. They told me that they don’t go out alone anymore, because they were always treated in a way which scared them by some of the refugees.
So Cologne was bound to happen sooner or later, and it will be the first of a long list of unpleasant and nasty and fear- and hate-inducing incidents.
I also expect the rift between migrants and Germans, already big, will increase in size, sadly enough.
It is sad, because it is divide and rule at its best. We are allowed to hate each other so that we may not unite against the real enemy—those who created the situation we are in.
I certainly don’t like my country being flooded with foreigners, but they are just tools in an inhuman and vicious plan, and I hope that more people will come to realize this in time.
So all in all, the signs for the near future are rather bleak. I would think that we will soon see further incidents like those in Cologne and then suddenly a backlash in parts of the German population, followed by (one day, after a terrorist attack) a declaration of a state of emergency—and from this it will only get worse.
The good thing—it will take us some years to get to the bottom.
And as we all know, the only way from the bottom is up.”
Yes, it’s getting grimmer by the second, but those who think Germany is spinning out of control underestimate the shrewdness of Angela Merkel. After all, one isn’t named TIME person of the year for being a dummy. Yes, there was another riot last week in Leipzig, with the right doing most of the vandalism this time. Bars and a kebab shop were trashed. Germans seem ready to kill each other, and the street violence promises to spread to other cities.
Her highness, however, has a solution. By diktat, Merkel has just instituted a draft, not of military-age males, but German females from 18 to 22. Those chosen through a weekly, nationally televised lottery will serve just six months as comfort women for war refugees and economic migrants. This will prevent all incidents of public groping or rape. Social harmony will be restored.
Merkel, “Just as the refugees have been maltreated by fate, us Germans will have a taste of that ourselves, though to a much lesser degree. The nation will forever be grateful to each comfort woman for her smallish sacrifice.”
Upon news of this, the German left celebrate by burning down every currywurst stand across Deutschland. Birthed during the American occupation, that yucky mess deserves its turbulent exit. Thanks to the always tactful mainstream media, the right’s response is unknown. TV news anchors calmly predict that a billion newcomers will arrive next year to be comforted. The left further exude by hurling Molotov cocktails at everyone in a uniform, including garbagemen and fast food wage slaves. Class traitors who have enriched multinational corporations, they deserve to be fried.
Forward!
January 19, 2016
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | European Union, Germany, Human rights, United States |
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